Page 15 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution

encourage scale and influence change across entire systems.

Aside from speed and breadth, the fourth industrial revolution is unique

because of the growing harmonization and integration of so many different
disciplines and discoveries. Tangible innovations that result from
interdependencies among different technologies are no longer science
fiction. Today, for example, digital fabrication technologies can interact
with the biological world. Some designers and architects are already mixing

computational design, additive manufacturing, materials engineering and
synthetic biology to pioneer systems that involve the interaction among
micro-organisms, our bodies, the products we consume, and even the

buildings we inhabit. In doing so, they are making (and even “growing”)
objects that are continuously mutable and adaptable (hallmarks of the plant
and animal kingdoms). 4

In The Second Machine Age, Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue that
computers are so dexterous that it is virtually impossible to predict what
applications they may be used for in just a few years. Artificial intelligence
(AI) is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants

and translation software. This is transforming our lives. AI has made
impressive progress, driven by exponential increases in computing power
and by the availability of vast amounts of data, from software used to

discover new drugs to algorithms that predict our cultural interests. Many of
these algorithms learn from the “bread crumb” trails of data that we leave in
the digital world. This results in new types of “machine learning” and
automated discovery that enables “intelligent” robots and computers to self-
programme and find optimal solutions from first principles.

Applications such as Apple’s Siri provide a glimpse of the power of one

subset of the rapidly advancing AI field – so-called intelligent assistants.
Only two years ago, intelligent personal assistants were starting to emerge.
Today, voice recognition and artificial intelligence are progressing so
quickly that talking to computers will soon become the norm, creating what

some technologists call ambient computing, in which robotic personal
assistants are constantly available to take notes and respond to user queries.
Our devices will become an increasing part of our personal ecosystem,
listening to us, anticipating our needs, and helping us when required – even

if not asked.

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